N-able's N-central 9.0 Adds Automation, Remote Control Tools

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N-able Technologies launched the latest version of its RMM and service automation platform Tuesday, N-central 9.0, for managed solution providers.

The new version offers an enhanced technicians' "runbook" of designs, new remote control capabilities and a new automation manager that should make N-able partners very happy, said Gavin Garbutt, CEO of N-able.

"It's wildly sophisticated but simple. We used the 'Keep It Simple Stupid' philosophy. We've had techs using, and they've been so excited," Garbutt said.

The new Automation Manager is a drag-and-drop tool that automates best practices captured in N-able's MSP Technician Runbook, which provides hundreds of pre-tested automation processes and policies for numerous IT maintenance, remediation and diagnostics functions.

Automation Manager should allow junior technicians to perform what were more complex script-writing and management functions formerly assigned to senior technicians. Now those senior technicians are freed from more administrative duties, Garbutt said.

"It really is a cool tool, and it's something the business owners have wanted," Garbutt said. "They've never been able to get their techs [to work] in a standardized fashion. It causes chaos when someone goes on holiday or leave. Now, they have a solution to standardize service delivery."

The drag-and-drop tool can perform automatic service functions by device class, by customer and across all customers, as well as other highly customizable tasks, Garbutt said.

"You can say for all Exchange 2003 servers, perform this check, update these patches. If backups did not happen, you can do as much by running that particular task at this service level," Garbutt said. "The whole point is if you have a reactive customer and a notification comes in, you can have a very junior technician drag the automation policies into place in order to fix it."

N-Central 9.0 will allow Cohn Consulting, an Atlanta-based MSP, to be more consistent in how it delivers services, said Jon Czerwinski, vice president and COO, who has been beta testing 9.0 for a couple months.

"Up until now, we had been very checklist driven, still relying on people to follow checklists and do it according to our process. Now, 9.0 puts the process in place, verifies it's happening and that it's going to happen every time," Czerwinski said.